It's official: Elon Musk is set to buy Twitter. The social media giant confirmed Monday the Tesla CEO and billionaire will acquire the company in a deal worth $44 billion. Once the deal is complete, which is expected by this year, Twitter will become a privately held company. "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," said Musk in a statement. "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans." Earlier Monday, Musk said: "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means." To read more about what the future of Twitter could look like, tap the link in our bio.